
Diplomacy or Crisis with DPRK in 2024?
Update: 2024-03-22
Share
Description
In this episode, Dr. Victor Cha is joined by Dr. Jung Pak, deputy assistant secretary of state for Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands and the U.S. senior official for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the US Department of State, to discuss the Biden administration's North Korea policy, DPRK-Russia cooperation as well as what to expect from North Korea in 2024.
Comments
Top Podcasts
The Best New Comedy Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best News Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Business Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Sports Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New True Crime Podcast Right Now – June 2024The Best New Joe Rogan Experience Podcast Right Now – June 20The Best New Dan Bongino Show Podcast Right Now – June 20The Best New Mark Levin Podcast – June 2024
In Channel
00:00
00:00
1.0x
0.5x
0.8x
1.0x
1.25x
1.5x
2.0x
3.0x
Sleep Timer
Off
End of Episode
5 Minutes
10 Minutes
15 Minutes
30 Minutes
45 Minutes
60 Minutes
120 Minutes


Transcript
00:00:00
[MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:02
North Korea is the impossible state.
00:00:05
It's a place that stumped leaders and policymakers for more than three decades.
00:00:11
It has a complex history, and it has become the United States top national security priority.
00:00:17
Each week on this show, we'll talk with the people who know the most about North Korea.
00:00:21
[MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:25
My name is Victor Chas, Senior Vice President for Asia and Korea Chair,
00:00:36
Professor at Georgetown.
00:00:38
And on this particular episode of the Impossible State, we will focus on North Korea and North Korea policy in particular of the Joseph Biden administration.
00:00:47
We have with us today-- I'm very happy to say-- Dr.
00:00:51
Jeong Park, who is the senior US senior official for DPRK, as well as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, responsible for Australia, New Zealand,
00:01:01
and Pacific Island affairs.
00:01:04
Prior to being at state, she was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution just down the road from us here at CSIS, where she authored a fantastic book, which I recommend all of you read,
00:01:15
called "Becoming Kim Jong Un."
00:01:18
I've read the book, and I also listened to it on audio.
00:01:21
I've done both.
00:01:23
And it's a fantastic piece of work, really, really real contribution to the field.
00:01:28
Dr.
00:01:29
Park has held senior positions at the Central Intelligence Agency.
00:01:33
She was once Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Korea at the National Intelligence Council.
00:01:39
And she is a fellow academic traveler.
00:01:42
She taught US history, received her PhD from Columbia, terrific school in New York City.
00:01:49
And she was also a full-bright scholar in South Korea.
00:01:51
So we have many things in common, actually, although I'm much older than you.
00:01:56
And I wrote my dissertation with carbon paper and with a typewriter, so I think it's a little bit different.
00:02:03
But anyway, Jeong, thanks so much for being with us.
00:02:05
I know you're extremely busy.
00:02:07
We really appreciate the time.
00:02:08
Victor, thank you so much for having me.
00:02:10
Always good to see you and always good to have this conversation.
00:02:13
I also learned so much from you from these conversations and really welcome this opportunity to talk to your audience.
00:02:19
Well, that's very kind.
00:02:19
That's very kind.
00:02:21
So we'll go right into it, because I know your time is short.
00:02:25
The first thing I guess is to ask you to explain to our audience this new-- I think it's a new position that you now have that's called senior official for DPRK issues.
00:02:37
For those who are not inside the beltway who don't may not know what that means, can you explain to our audience what a senior official for DPRK is?
00:02:46
Yeah, thanks for that question.
00:02:49
Let me just step back a little bit and say that Ambassador Kim, Sung Kim, who retired at the end of last year, was a special representative for the DPRK,
00:03:00
really, in honor from the president to appoint him to that position.
00:03:05
And Ambassador Kim is retired.
00:03:08
So since he has retired, I've taken on and assumed those roles that Ambassador Kim had had as a special representative.
00:03:19
And the senior official title for the DPRK is more of a technical term that I will not bore anybody with you or your audience.
00:03:30
But in essence, I've taken on the duties of the special representative in charge of DPRK policy for the United States government.
00:03:37
OK, good.
00:03:37
So there's somebody that's at the helm, right?
00:03:40
That's good.
00:03:40
That's always good.
00:03:41
There's always somebody at the helm.
00:03:42
And this is a terrific gig given the incredible amount of expertise within the US government and the expertise outside the government.
00:03:54
You, Victor, you once worked at the White House working on these sets of issues.
00:03:59
So it's a really rich environment in Washington for DPRK issues.
00:04:03
Yes, yes.
00:04:04
Well, thanks.
00:04:04
That's very kind of you.
00:04:07
So maybe we can start off by just if you could just summarize for us what the administration's policy has been on North Korea.
00:04:14
You've been a part of this effort now for the past three years.
00:04:19
And then also your assessment of how you think things are going.
00:04:22
What are the successes?
00:04:23
What are the failures?
00:04:25
We often hear in sort of the chattering classes around DC, different views of the policy.
00:04:31
But we'd love to hear from the administration sort of-- what are the touchstone points of the policy and where you think you're making progress and not.
00:04:39
Right, thank you.
00:04:40
First and foremost, the DPRK policy review was one of the first ones that we did that the Biden administration did as soon as we came into office.
00:04:49
I think it was late.
00:04:50
It was around April of 2021.
00:04:53
So it's one of the first, if not, the first policy.
00:04:55
So I think that really underscores how important it was for the administration to have a consolidated cohesive policy.
00:05:06
Complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula remains our goal.
00:05:11
And toward that effort, we're going to make sure that we strengthen deterrence.
00:05:17
I'm really proud of all the work that we have done on deterrence, as well as enhancing our relationships with our allies, especially the Republic of Korea and Japan,
00:05:29
both bilaterally and trilaterally.
00:05:31
It's been a really terrific partnership.
00:05:35
We've also really amplified and boosted our sanctions regime.
00:05:41
And we've also really expanded into the cyber realm to really match and to counter the DPRK's efforts in that cyber space.
00:05:56
So we've been doing quite a bit on allies and partners, on cyber, on sanctions, as well as trying to get humanitarian cooperation restarted with the DPRK.
00:06:09
And of course, we always call for dialogue with the DPRK.
00:06:12
We've reached out privately, publicly, through third parties, to try to generate some sort of diplomacy with the DPRK,
00:06:24
because we think that's the only way that we get peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.
00:06:29
Yeah, I think different folk administration officials have talked about all the diplomatic efforts, like a wide range of efforts, to try to make contact with them.
00:06:44
So I assume the successes are things like allied coordination has never been better.
00:06:49
It's fantastic, yes.
00:06:50
I mean, the term airtight is not an exaggeration in that sense.
00:06:56
The difficulties I assume would be the fact that they continue to do weapons demonstrations that are pretty fast-clip.
00:07:06
And they've significantly increased over the past couple of years.
00:07:11
The other success, of course, as you mentioned, has been in terms of enhancing extended and clear deterrence,
00:07:21
the Washington Declaration, the NCG.
00:07:24
These are really major accomplishments.
00:07:27
And the Camp David summit, which was-- we're still in the glow of that really historic event.
00:07:34
Yeah.
00:07:35
And there seems to be a lot of-- almost everywhere you look, there seems to be some agency that's doing some trilateral that all follows from Camp David.
00:07:44
So that's terrific.
00:07:46
But if I could move, in particular, to the diplomacy side, because that's, of course, where there's a lot of interest by experts, the audience,
00:07:58
there was a statement that Mirap Hooper made from the White House.
00:08:04
We had her speak at a conference we did in Korea a couple weeks ago, the CSI's Jingong Ilbo Forum,
00:08:14
where she said that the administration was willing to talk about threat reduction and so-called interim measures if it helps to reduce tension on the Korean Peninsula.
00:08:26
And so I guess the question is, what does that mean in practice?
00:08:32
Like, how should we be thinking about that?
00:08:35
Yeah, I don't think it's anything too different from what we had been talking about.
00:08:41
The policy hasn't changed.
00:08:43
Our goal is complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
00:08:47
But as you've heard in those comments, there's lots of ways that we want dialogue.
00:08:53
And there are lots of valuable discussions that we can have with the DPRK, including on risk reduction to reduce the risk of miscalculation or inadvertent escalation.
00:09:05
But we can also talk about sanctions or confidence building or humanitarian cooperation.
00:09:12
So that's what we mean by no preconditions to our dialogue offers, that there is no precondition and that there is a great deal of things that we need to be talking about with the DPRK.
00:09:25
I'm sure you've seen reports about some border re-opening, some European delegations being able to get in.
00:09:36
So welcome those developments.
00:09:39
And we would welcome that North Korea would re-open their borders and hopefully let humanitarian cooperation to continue, given the long, four-year-long border closures because of the pandemic.
00:09:53
Has it been four years?
00:09:54
It's been four years.
00:09:54
It's been four years.
00:09:55
Wow, that's something.
00:09:57
And so the Russians and the Chinese are back in, I assume, and they've let some European countries-- are there about to let some European countries-- Well,
00:10:07
no, there were reports of European countries having been able to do head-in for a time.
00:10:13
Oh, they have been.
00:10:14
Oh, OK.
00:10:14
All right.
00:10:16
But UN agencies and things of that nature have not yet been-- not that I've seen, but our position is, if they can re-open their borders, great.
00:10:26
It's really important for the diplomatic court to be able to get back in the humanitarian aid agencies to go back in the UN organizations.
00:10:35
It's an important move, hopefully.
00:10:38
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:10:39
I remember during-- well, we were out of the lockdown, but they were still in-- North Korea was still in the lockdown.
00:10:44
We're a number of these on-voice, senior on-voice, were sort of prepositioning in Seoul, like waiting to go back in.
00:10:52
They had made the request and they were waiting to get an answer if they could go in.
00:10:57
So well, it's good to hear that they're starting to open up and some of them are-- Well, we'll see.
00:11:02
I think it's too early to tell what the extent of that would be.
00:11:07
We'll see.
00:11:08
OK.
00:11:10
Great.
00:11:11
So I wanted to ask you-- so 2024 is an important year for a variety of different reasons.
00:11:20
And at least CSIS has done some work looking at what we expect to happen in 2024, in particular, because 2024 is an election year in Korea, right?
00:11:30
The South Korea, they have their legislative elections on April 10th.
00:11:34
And of course, here in the United States, we have our presidential elections.
00:11:39
So there's been a lot of speculation about what North Korea could do in 2024.
00:11:44
We've sort of said that we think they will ramp up their tempo of weapons demonstrations because they tend to do that in election years, particularly US election years.
00:11:56
But as you know, there are others who have suggested that they have made a strategic decision to-- I don't know what the right way of putting it.
00:12:04
But I think I remember one particular report saying that Kim Jong-un basically has made the decision like his grandfather to go to war.
00:12:15
So curious to get your thoughts on sort of what you expect in 2024 from North Korea and whether you're worried about actual conflict in 2024.
00:12:25
Very important question.
00:12:29
We've been watching this issue for a long time.
00:12:33
And we also know that DPRK will manufacture a reason for provocative actions to fit their political needs or their technical needs.
00:12:45
So from my perspective, I think they have been doing a lot of weapons demonstrations.
00:12:52
In 2022, I think they did 69 ballistic missile tests.
00:13:00
They've also, since January of 2021, said that they're going to do a whole series of tests and develop new technologies.
00:13:09
Hypersonic systems is one.
00:13:11
The UUVs, the underwater vehicles, nuclear vehicles, the solid fuel intercontinental ballistic missile systems.
00:13:23
So military reconnaissance satellite, they had a list.
00:13:28
They had a to-do list.
00:13:30
And they've been developing and testing those capabilities.
00:13:35
And so of course, we're incredibly concerned about all of these developments.
00:13:41
I don't think we're on the precipice of war, however.
00:13:46
We don't see any signals or evidence of a near-term attack.
00:13:54
I also don't think it's in Kim Jong-un's interest to launch a war.
00:13:59
But of course, we're always watchful for anything below that, the Grey Zone activities.
00:14:05
And what has been worrisome is the rhetoric that has accompanied those missile tests and the weapons systems being developed.
00:14:15
As you know, Kim Jong-un, since late last year, has talked about reunification as out of the question now that South Korea is their primary enemy,
00:14:25
which is different from their longstanding policy of reunification at some point.
00:14:31
So of course, we're always watchful for any kinds of provocative actions by the DPRK.
00:14:38
But nevertheless, I think this is exactly why it's really important for the DPRK and the United States and others to be engaging with the DPRK in a constructive way.
00:14:49
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:51
If I could sort of shift the conversation to this whole question of DPRK, Russia cooperation, because I think it's been very much certainly on our minds at CSIS as we've done research on this.
00:15:05
And I'm sure for you as well.
00:15:07
If we could pull up the map that we produced.
00:15:10
So this is a map.
00:15:14
It's based on unclassified sources that we've put together looking at sort of the route that we believe North Korean munitions are taking from Nogin port to Dune,
00:15:24
port in Russia, and then being transported by Rail Westward to the war front in Mausdok, but several storage facilities in Russia.
00:15:34
I think the White House has said 10,000 shipping containers worth of munitions.
00:15:40
The South Korean defense ministry has said like 3.5 million rounds of ammunition.
00:15:47
DNI Haynes had a statement in companion to the annual threat assessment in which she said that Russia may be dropping long held non-proliferation norms in its cooperation with DPRK.
00:16:04
So of course, what North Korea is doing is certainly helping Russia and the war in Ukraine.
00:16:11
But what we've been sort of been focused on is trying to understand what the North Koreans are getting in return for this.
00:16:16
They're getting food and fuel.
00:16:18
But what else could they be getting, especially, as you just said, Kim Jong-un laid out a list of things that he wants.
00:16:25
It was like a Christmas list, a shopping list.
00:16:29
So I guess one is, so how concerned are you about this?
00:16:33
And then two, what can be done to sort of deal with this DPRK Russia cooperation?
00:16:39
When I took on this job in January of 2021, I didn't think that I would be working on Russia, nearly as much as I'm working on Russia right now.
00:16:49
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been an all-hands-on-deck effort for all of us.
00:16:57
And the fact is that over the past couple of years, we've seen how multiple theaters have overlapped.
00:17:04
You have the Northeast Asia or Indo-Pacific theater overlapping with war in Europe.
00:17:11
So I think that goes to show how important it is to keep working at non-proliferation, to keep working at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
00:17:22
And I think nothing shows or encapsulates the importance of all of our efforts over the decades to try to constrain and constrict and choke off the DPRK's approach to their nuclear weapons.
00:17:38
So Russia has also using North Korean ballistic missiles on Ukraine.
00:17:46
So these are killing Ukrainian people, destroying Ukrainian lives.
00:17:51
And certainly this is an abhorrent violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
00:17:58
And I think about what this does for Kim Jong-un and for North Korea, that you have a permanent member of the UN Security Council buying arms and using North Korea's ballistic band ballistic missiles to use against a country.
00:18:15
So this has been a tremendous effort, or interagency effort, that we work on with our allies and partners.
00:18:24
It seems as if Russia doesn't seem to care that they are blowing up these non-proliferation norms.
00:18:31
And we've seen a steady pace of interactions between Russia and DPRK, including a Putin-Kim meeting.
00:18:40
And Kim Jong-un's foreign minister also saw Putin.
00:18:44
And they certainly talked about-- and they were not worried about flouting this, which is the-- or flaunting this, which is the fact that they talked about weapons and rockets.
00:18:56
And so this is deeply concerning.
00:18:59
You've talked about the thousands of containers, the ballistic missiles that are being transferred from North Korea to Russia.
00:19:07
North Korea certainly is not doing this for free.
00:19:10
And they're certainly looking-- almost certainly looking for things like fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, ballistic missile technologies, and other technologies or armored vehicles.
00:19:20
There's a lot that Russia can provide.
00:19:22
And so we're always watchful for that.
00:19:23
So this is a pretty fraught moment from my perspective in terms of non-proliferation, what it means for actual war fighting,
00:19:33
and what North Korea might be learning about their weapons systems because Russia is actually using it on the battlefield.
00:19:40
Yeah, I mean, to think, as you know, well, historically, Soviet Union was pretty stingy with giving like cutting edge technology to North Korea.
00:19:51
And North Korea acquired it, usually through third parties, right?
00:19:55
They would get something, reverse engineer it, slap a North Korean sticker on it and say it's a North Korean engine, but are you concerned that because Putin is so reliant on these munitions for Ukraine that he might be willing to sort of drop these long-held non-proliferation norms?
00:20:14
I mean, you remember the first nuclear reactor that North Korea got was from the Soviet Union, but the Soviets made them sign the NPT, right?
00:20:25
But Putin is so reliant on these munitions now, right?
00:20:30
That I worry that he won't sort of live up to the same standards that his predecessors did in terms of supplying stuff to Kim.
00:20:40
Yeah, no, I think that's right.
00:20:42
And that's why we've been very focused on rallying the international community.
00:20:47
I think you've seen us do that ever since the war started, you know, warning beforehand, but also doing that in the ensuing months and years.
00:20:57
So this is of great concern.
00:20:59
And of course, Russia has not been a good partner at the UN Security Council.
00:21:04
China and Russia have both been blocking the measures that should be imposed on the DPRK for its ballistic missile programs,
00:21:16
but they have so far generally shielded the DPRK.
00:21:22
It's kind of an impossible situation.
00:21:23
They shield the DPRK and then they say to you, go talk to them, right?
00:21:28
I mean, and the North doesn't want to answer the phone.
00:21:31
So it's kind of an impossible situation to be in.
00:21:35
Which then of course leads me to the last question I wanted to ask you.
00:21:38
And so, you know, you sort of laid out like what were to expect in 2024, what the administration's policy is, both combination of sanctions,
00:21:48
humanitarian diplomacy.
00:21:51
And, you know, I'm just trying to get your sense, you know, in what's left of 2024, is there still a chance?
00:21:57
Like, is there an opportunity for diplomacy, for dialogue?
00:22:01
We know the sanctions will continue in these other things, but you know, what is the, like, what's your gut view on this, what's the chances of dying on them?
00:22:09
You know, sanctions have to continue regardless.
00:22:11
That's what we're obligated to do, right?
00:22:14
Implement those sanctions.
00:22:16
And they're there for a reason.
00:22:17
They're there to keep us safe and to prevent proliferation.
00:22:21
You know, but diplomacy, as you know, so well, Victor, is the art of the possible, and maybe the impossible.
00:22:29
But we'll keep going at it.
00:22:33
This is not going to be solved overnight.
00:22:36
A lot of people, a lot of smart people have been working on this issue for a long time.
00:22:41
But I do believe that all of our efforts will have, ultimately, have cumulative effect.
00:22:48
So we'll keep on with our efforts at deterrence, but we'll also keep on with our efforts on sanctions, implementation, on the cyber efforts, the human rights efforts,
00:22:59
the humanitarian efforts, as well as, you know, continuing to reach out to the DPRK for talks.
00:23:05
So that's a lot of work that we have been undertaking.
00:23:10
And we'll hope that, and we'll continue to press for dialogue.
00:23:15
We'll continue to press China and Russia.
00:23:17
We'll continue to rally our allies and partners on this issue.
00:23:21
Well, thanks.
00:23:22
That was a great run-up of sort of the policy, the challenges, the expectations, and of course, the disappointments also with China and Russia in terms of-- I mean,
00:23:34
they signed on to 10 UN Security Council resolutions, and now they're violating-- basically violating all of them, which is quite unfortunate.
00:23:42
Well, again, thanks to Dr.
00:23:45
Jongpok, senior official for DPRK, for joining us today on the impossible state.
00:23:50
We wish you the best of luck and hope that there is success, whether that is on the deterrence, the sanctions, or the diplomacy side.
00:23:58
So we're really grateful.
00:24:00
Thank you again.
00:24:00
And to our viewers and listeners, thank you for following another episode of the Impossible State.
00:24:06
We'll see you again in about three weeks.
00:24:08
If you have a question for one of our experts about the impossible state,
00:24:20
email us at impossiblestate@csss.org.
00:24:23
If you want to dive deeper into the issues surrounding North Korea, check out Beyond Parallel.
00:24:28
That's our micro website that's dedicated to bringing a better understanding of the Korean Peninsula.
00:24:34
You can find it at beyondparallel.css.org.
00:24:39
And don't forget to leave us a review on Apple podcasts.
00:24:42
That's so more listeners can find us.
00:24:44
It's very helpful.
00:24:45
We're now also streaming on Spotify.
00:24:47
So you can find us there, too, where you find all your music.
00:24:50
How cool is that?
00:24:51
And don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
00:24:54
This is the Impossible State.
00:25:05